Grand Inquisitor of Torquemada
The struggle of the inquisitors of the Catholic kings against the allegedly unstable conversos (converting Jews to Christianity) ultimately led to large-scale persecution of the Jews of the united kingdoms, which ended in their expulsion from the country.
"Blood libel"
In the years 1490-1491. the so-called case of the holy child from La Guardia caused a great resonance in Castile: the inquisitors then accused several Jews and their sympathizers of the ritual murder of a five-year-old Christian child in a small town near Toledo. According to investigators, this was the case: on Good Friday, 1488, five Jews and six “new Christians” carved a 5-year-old boy from La Guardia, forced him to bear the cross, and “suffered the same sufferings described in the New Testament as applied to Jesus To Christ. " After that, they crucified him and tore out the heart, which they were going to use for magic rituals with the aim of poisoning the water.
8 suspects were found guilty and burned. Three more were unavailable due to death or timely departure. And the boy, whose identity and the very fact of whose existence could not be established, was declared a saint. Jewish historians, by the way, are very doubtful even of the very possibility of a union of Spanish Jews with uncircumcised conversos, whom they did not consider Jews. AT historical literature, this case received the eloquent name of "blood libel."
"Book autodafe"
Around the same time, more than 6 thousand books were burned at St. Stephen's Square in Salamanca, which, according to Torquemada, were "infected with the errors of Judaism or saturated with witchcraft, magic, magic and other superstitions."
Juan Antonio Llorente, who, recall, himself at the end of the XVIII century was the Secretary of the Inquisition Tribunal in Madrid, writes:
According to the testimony of the same author, these and other “book autodafes” were pure “amateur performances” of the inquisitors, who
Arthur Arnoux wrote in The Stories of the Inquisition:
However, books in Spain were burned even before Torquemada: in 1434, for example, the confessor of Juan II Lope de Barrientos (the Dominican, of course) persuaded this monarch to burn the library of Don, a close relative of the king - Enrique of Aragon, the Marquis de Villena, who was a rather famous poet and alchemist.
The Spanish Inquisitors did not invent anything new: they followed the path indicated by Dominic Guzman - their patron and founder of the Order.
Edict of granada
According to most historians, both the "blood libel" and the large-scale burning of books in Salamanca were aimed at preparing public awareness for the publication of the famous "El Decreto de la Alhambra" ("Edicto de Granada"), which announced the expulsion of Jews from the territory of the United Kingdom . This edict was published on March 31, 1492.
The Edict, in particular, said:
Nicolas-Sylvester Bergier (famous doctor of theology of the XVIII century) wrote:
Now, the "Jewish question" in the territory subject to the Catholic kings had to be resolved finally and irrevocably.
Jews were ordered to leave Spain by the end of July 1492, while they were mockingly allowed
That is, the Jews had to leave the country, leaving almost all their property, since it was almost impossible to sell it - the neighbors knew that after 4 months they would get everything for nothing, and money for that part of it that was still managed to be sold was ruthlessly withdrawn boundaries. It is believed that then more than fifty thousand wealthy Jewish families lost their fortune. The descendants of the Spanish Jews who left the country in 1492 kept the keys to “their” houses until the XNUMXth century.
Learning about the Granada Edict, the Jews tried to act on the principle: "if the problem can be solved with money, then this is not a problem, but expenses." They offered the Catholic monarchs 30 thousand ducats “for state needs”, an obligation from all Jews to live in separate quarters from Christians, returning to their homes before nightfall, and even agreed to a ban on certain professions. Isaac ben Yehuda, the former treasurer of the king of Portugal, and now the royal farmer in Castile and trusted adviser to the Catholic kings, who granted him the nobility and the right to be called Don Abravanel, went to an audience with Isabella and Ferdinand. At this meeting, Queen Isabella stated that Jews can remain on condition of conversion to Christianity. But the amount collected by the Jewish communities made the right impression. The Catholic monarchs were already inclined to cancel their Edict when Torquemada appeared in the palace, who declared:
Then he threw a crucifix on the table, saying:
The fate of the Spanish Jews was decided. According to modern data, from 50 to 150 thousand Jews chose baptism ("conversion"), the rest - exile. It is this group of Jews that is known throughout the world as “Sephardim” (from “Sefarad” - Spain).
Sephardic and Ashkenazi
Before the exodus, the rabbis ordered the marriage of all children over 12 years old - so that no one would be alone in a foreign land.
It should be said that the expulsion of the Jews was not something fundamentally new and few in Europe surprised anyone. Jews were expelled from France in 1080, 1147, 1306, 1394 and 1591, from England - in 1188, 1198, 1290 and 1510, from Hungary - in 1360, from Poland - in 1407. Perhaps the nature of this deportation was surprising: Jews expelled not on a national, but on a confessional basis. Torquemada sent his subordinates to the Jewish quarters to explain: the government and the church do not want the Jews to leave the country, but their conversion to the “true faith”, and urged everyone to be baptized and preserve their property and status in society.
Against the background of large-scale repressions against conversos, the decision of many Spanish Jews to maintain their faith is not surprising: they quite reasonably assumed that in a couple of years they would be burned for insufficiently zealous rituals of a religion new to them.
The exiled Jews chose different ways of emigration. Some of them went to Italy, including Don Abravanel (Yitzhak bin Yehuda). Many died on the way from the plague, and those that were in Naples in 1510-1511. were banished from there for several years.
Others headed to North Africa, where many were killed and robbed.
The fate of those who decided to connect their fate with the Ottoman Empire was better. By order of the eighth Ottoman Sultan Bayezid II, Turkish ships under the command of Admiral Kemal Reis, who had fought on the side of Granada in Andalusia and the Balearic Islands since 1487, now took on board running Sephardim. They were settled in Istanbul, Edirne, Thessaloniki, Izmir, Manisa, Bursa, Gelibole, Amasya and some other cities. This Sultan commented on the “Granada Edict” with the words:
Some Jews reached Palestine, where the Safed community appeared.
The fate of those Spanish Jews who decided to emigrate to Portugal was tragic, because already in 1498 they again had to survive the horrors of exile. And again Torquemada was related to their expulsion! It was he who insisted on the inclusion in the marriage contract concluded between the King of Portugal Manuel and the daughter of the Catholic monarchs Isabella of Asturias (Isabella the Younger) a clause requiring the expulsion of the Jews of this country. Isabella, who was previously married to the Portuguese prince Alfonso (the young man died after falling from his horse), did not want to go to Portugal for the second time. She said that now she intends to engage only in prayers and self-flagellation, but you don’t especially get close to such parents and Tommaso Torquemada - I went.
The girl did not deceive the premonition: on the way to her wedding, the only son of the Catholic monarchs, Juan, died, and she died during childbirth on August 23, 1498. And after 4 years, her son also died, who was to become king of Castile, Aragon and Portugal. This death was one of the reasons that Portugal did not become part of Spain.
In later times, Sephardim reached Navarre, Bizkaia, central and northern France, Austria, England and the Netherlands.
The most striking thing is that the more orthodox Sephardic people brutally quarreled with the Ashkenazi, considering them "second-class Jews." And some of them did not consider Ashkenazis to be Jews at all, claiming that they were the descendants of the residents of the Khazar Khaganate who had accepted and did not belong to any of the tribes of Israel. This "hypothesis" turned out to be very tenacious, and the "Khazar origin of Ashkenazi" (especially when it comes to immigrants from the former Soviet republics) can sometimes be heard even in modern Israel.
In the Sephardic synagogues of Amsterdam and London of the 1776th century, Sephardim sat, Ashkenazi - stood behind the partition. Marriages between them were not encouraged, in 1843 the London Sephardic community decided: in the event of the death of the Sephardic who married the Ashkenazi daughter, his widow was not entitled to help. Ashkenazi also treated the Sephardim very cool. In New York in 1968 they created a public organization, which in German was called the Bundesbruder, in Yiddish - Bnei Brit (meaning one - “sons” or “brothers” of the Union, in 22 it had a thousand branches in XNUMX countries of the world) - Sephardis were not accepted into this “union”.
Yes, and these two groups of Jews spoke in different languages: Sephardic - in "Ladino", Ashkenazi - in Yiddish.
The division of Jews into Sephardic and Ashkenazi is still preserved. But there is, after all, another rather large group of Jews - the “mizrahs” who are considered to be immigrants from Asia and Africa of non-Hispanic origin: they include the Jews of Yemen, Iraq, Syria, Iran and India.
Ashkenazi Jews lived mainly on the territory of the Russian Empire (below the Pale of Settlement).
But in Georgia, Azerbaijan, and Bukhara, Jewish communities existed that professed Sephardic Judaism; these Jews have no Spanish roots.
Among the descendants of Spanish Jews are the philosopher Baruch Spinoza, one of the founders of political economy, David Ricardo, impressionist painter Camille Pizarro and even British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli. The latter once declared in the House of Lords:
It is believed that the last Jew left Spain on August 2, 1492. And the next day, three caravels of Christopher Columbus set off from the Spanish port of Palos de la Frantera (Wembley Province).
Jacques Attali, a French politician and economist of Jewish descent (the first head of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the alleged member of the Bilderberg Club), said in this regard:
It is believed that from one and a half to two million descendants of Jews expelled by Catholic kings in the XNUMXth century now live in the world. The authorities of modern Spain offer them citizenship in a simplified procedure: this requires either historical documents or a notarized certificate from the head of a recognized Sephardic Jewish community.
Roman adversary Tommaso de Torquemada
Meanwhile, on July 25, 1492, Pope Innocent VIII died, and Rodrigo di Borgia, better known as Pope Alexander VI, was elected the new pontiff.
This native of the small town of Khativa near Valencia was called the "Apothecary of Satan", "the monster of debauchery" and "the darkest figure of the papacy," and his reign was "misfortune for the church."
It was he who, according to legend, died by confusing a glass of poisoned wine that his son Cesare prepared for the cardinals having lunch with them (Cesare survived).
All the more surprising is the efforts of this pope to stop the madness of the Spanish inquisitors beyond his control and his struggle against Torquemada, to which he tried to attract even the Catholic king Ferdinand. These efforts, much more active and consistent than the timid attempts of Sixtus IV, gave Louis Viardot the opportunity to call Torquemada "a merciless executioner, whose bloody atrocities were reproached even by Rome."
Once again the question arises - which is worse: a cheerful bastard invested in power or an honest and disinterested fanatic who has the opportunity to rule human destinies?
In the end, on June 23, 1494, Alexander VI sent to Torquemade four “assistants” (co-auditors), to whom he gave the right to appeal his decisions. The papal decree said that this is done "in view of the old age of Torquemada and his various ailments" - the great inquisitor took this phrase as an open insult. Many believe that this was a deliberate provocation: Alexander VI hoped that the enemy, angry with “distrust”, would defiantly resign, relying on the intercession of Queen Isabella.
But Torquemada was not a person who could even let anyone get into his own business, and therefore he continued to make decisions alone. At his insistence, two bishops were sentenced to death, who dared to complain to him in Rome, but Pope Alexander VI obtained pardon from the Catholic kings.
The constant opposition that Torquemada now felt literally at every step and on all issues, of course, was very angry and annoying him. And age already made itself felt. The Grand Inquisitor now slept poorly, he was tormented by gouty pain and constant weakness, some even said that the inquisitor was haunted by the "shadows of innocent victims." In 1496, Torquemada, nominally continuing to remain a great inquisitor, actually retired, retiring to the monastery of St. Thomas (Tommaso) built with his active participation.
He no longer came to the royal palace, but Catholic monarchs regularly visited him. Queen Isabella's visits became especially frequent after the only son of Isabella and Ferdinand, Juan, who died at the age of 1497, was buried in this monastery in 19.
In the last year of his life, Torquemada convened the inquisitors of the United Kingdom to familiarize them with the new set of instructions from 16 points. He also entered into negotiations with the English king Henry VII, who, in exchange for promoting the marriage of his eldest son Arthur with the youngest daughter of the Catholic monarchs Catherine, made a promise not to accept in his country those who were persecuted by the Inquisition.
Catherine of Aragon
The fate of this daughter of the great monarchs turned out to be difficult and strange. She arrived in England in October 1501, the wedding took place on November 14, and on April 2, 1502, her husband Arthur died before he could leave the heir. Catherine said that she did not have time to enter into an intimate relationship with her husband in view of his young age. For several years she was in England, while her parents (and then, after the death of her mother in 1504, only her father) were negotiating with Henry VII.
The English king hesitated for a long time, choosing to marry the young widow himself (which did not suit the Spanish side), or to marry her to her second son. In 1507, Ferdinand sent credentials to Catherine, and she appeared in the role of ambassador to the English Court, thus becoming the first female diplomat. Finally, in April 1509, dying, Henry VII, worrying about the future of his dynasty, demanded that his son and sole heir marry Catherine. On June 11, 1509, the new king married his brother's widow. This king was the famous Henry VIII, who is perceived by many as the English reincarnation of the Duke of Bluebeard from a French legend.
And this is an English reading room that allows students to remember their fate:
Divorced, beheaded, died;
Divorced, beheaded, survived.
(“Divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, survived”).
All the children of Catherine of Aragon, except for one girl, Maria, were born dead or died immediately after childbirth. On this basis, Henry VIII requested permission from the Pope Clement VII for divorce - appealing to the biblical dictum: “If anyone takes his brother’s wife: this is vile; he revealed the nakedness of his brother, they will be childless. "
The refusal of the pope led to a complete severance of relations with Rome and the adoption in 1534 of the famous “Act of Suprematism,” in which Henry was proclaimed the supreme head of the Church of England. Henry VIII married Anna Boleyn, Catherine was deprived of the status of queen, becoming only the Dowager Princess of Wales, and her daughter was declared illegitimate. This did not prevent Mary Tudor from ascending the English throne (in 1553). She was also the queen of Ireland, and since 1556, after her marriage to Philip II, she was also the queen of Spain.
She went down in history under the nickname of Maria the Bloody, she ruled for 4 years and died in 1557 from some kind of fever. Her successor was another girl with a difficult fate - the daughter of Anna Boleyn Elizabeth, whose "sea dogs" will destroy the Invincible Armada and tear apart the colonial possessions of Spain to shreds.
During her reign, the famous British East India Company will appear, William Shakespeare will be famous and Maria Stuart will be executed.
Death of Tommaso Torquemada
After pardoning the bishops who complained about him to Rome, the offended Torquemada did not visit the royal palace. Catholic kings, especially Isabella, came to him themselves.
September 16, 1498 Torquemada died and was buried in the chapel of the monastery of St. Thomas (Thomas). In 1836, his grave was destroyed on the grounds that Torquemada, who ordered many people to be removed from the graves in order to abuse their remains, must himself posthumously experience the same fate.
The sad fate of the Mudejar and the Moriski
4 years after the death of Torquemada, the Moors (Mudejaras) who did not want to be baptized were expelled from Castile - this happened in 1502. This deportation is also often mistakenly attributed to Tommaso Torquemade. Those Moors who chose to stay converted to Christianity have since been scornfully called Moriski ("Mauritanians") in Castile, Saracens in Valencia and Catalonia, and in Aragon they kept the name of the name of the Moors.
In 1568, the Moors living in the territory of the former Granada Emirate raised a rebellion, which was a response to the ban on the Arabic language, national clothes, traditions and customs in 1567 (Alpuhara war). It was suppressed only in 1571.
On April 9, 1609, King Philip III signed an edict on the expulsion of the Moriski from the country, very similar to Granada in 1492. The difference was that it was allowed to remove young children from the Moriski families who were handed over to Catholic priests for education. First, the descendants of the Moors were evicted from Valencia, then (as early as 1610) - from Aragon, Catalonia and Andalusia.
In total, about 300 thousand people were deported, according to experts, this deportation had negative consequences for the country's economy. It was Moriski who specialized in growing olive and mulberry trees, rice, grapes, and sugar cane. In the south, through their efforts, an irrigation system was created, now worn out. Many fields in those years remained sown, cities lacked manpower. Castile in this regard suffered the least - it is believed that tens of thousands of mariskas managed to escape deportation in this kingdom.
It is interesting that some of the Mariskas remained Christians - they moved to Provence (up to 40 thousand people), Livorno or to America. But most of them returned to Islam (some, perhaps in protest) and settled in the Maghreb.
Some of the Moriskans settled in Morocco near the city of Sale, where there was already a colony of Spanish Moors who moved there at the beginning of the 1627th century. They were known as “Ornacheros” - after the name of the Spanish (Andalusian) city of Ornachuelos. Their language was Arabic. But the new settlers spoke already in the Andalusian dialect of Spanish. They had nothing to lose, and very quickly on the Moroccan coast appeared the pirate republic of Sale (from the name of the fortified city), which also included Rabat and Kasbah. This peculiar state existed from 1668 to XNUMX, its authorities even established diplomatic relations with England, France and Holland. Consul Street in Medina (the old city) of Rabat recalls this time. Its first “great admiral” and “president” was the Dutch corsair Jan Jansson van Haarlem, who, having been captured by the Barbary pirates near the Canary Islands, converted to Islam and became known to everyone under the name Murat-reis (the Younger).
But we will talk about the famous Barbary pirates and the great Ottoman admirals in the following articles.
- Ryzhov V.A.
- Ryzhov V.A. Tommaso Torquemada. The man who became a symbol of the terrible era
Ryzhov V.A. Pupil of Torquemada
Ryzhov V.A. Inquisition in the united kingdoms of Castile and Aragon and Tommaso de Torquemada
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